"Yea, slimy things did crawl with legsUpon the slimy sea."

"General principles... are to the facts as the root and sap of a tree are to its leaves."

"Water, water, everywhere,And all the boards did shrink;Water, water, everywhere,Nor any drop to drink."

"Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process."

"What comes from the heart goes to the heart."

"Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming."

"Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony."

"There are four kinds of readers. The first is like the hourglass; and their reading being as the sand, it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second is like the sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third is like a jelly bag, allowing all that is pure to pass away, and retaining only the refuse and dregs. And the fourth is like the slaves in the diamond mines of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, retain only pure gems."

"He was, as every truly great poet has ever been, a good man; but finding it impossible to realize his own aspirations, either in religion or politics, or society, he gave up his heart to the living spirit and light within him, and avenged himself on the world by enriching it with this record of his own transcendental ideal."

"In poems, equally as in philosophic disquisitions, genius produces the strongest impressions of novelty while it rescues the most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission."

"For I was reared in the great city, pent with cloisters dim,and saw naught lovely but the sky and stars.But thou, my babe! Shalt wander like a breezeBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the cragsOf ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds,Which image in their bulk both lakes and shoresAnd mountain crags: so shall thou see and hearThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy GodUtters, who from eternity doth teachHimself in all, and al things in himselfGreat universal teacher! He shall moldThy spirit and by giving , make it ask."

"A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!"

"Love is flower like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree."

"A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive."

"A man's desire is for the woman, but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man."

"The reader should be carried forward, not merely or chiefly by the mechanical impulse of curiosity, or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution; but by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself."

"Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants."

"To be loved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed."

"Where true Love burns Desire is Love's pure flame;It is the reflex of our earthly frame,That takes its meaning from the nobler part,And but translates the language of the heart."

"Prose: words in their best order, poetry: the best words in the best order."

"Not one man in a thousand has the strength of mind or the goodness of heart to be an atheist."

"How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them."

"Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole."

"But I do not doubt that it is beneficial sometimes to contemplate in the mind, as in a picture, the image of a grander and better world; for if the mind grows used to the trivia of daily life, it may dwindle too much and decline altogether into worthless thoughts."

"He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all."

"An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die."

"People of humor are always in some degree people of genius."

"Reviewers are usually people who would have been, poets, historians, biographer, if they could. They have tried their talents at one thing or another and have failed; therefore they turn critic."

"Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me."

"Men, I still think, ought to be weighed, not counted. Their worth ought to be the final estimate of their value."

"A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory."

"Fear gives sudden instincts of skill."

"The wise only possess ideas the greater part of mankind are possessed by them."

"Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism."

"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea."

"All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness."

"The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man."

"The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation, are one, Security to possessors; two, facility to acquirers; and three, hope to all."

"No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor."

"To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill."

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights Whatever stirs this mortal frame All are but ministers of Love And feed His sacred flame."

"Friendship is a sheltering tree."

"On Pilgrim's Progress: 'I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colors."

"The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father."

"Praises of the unworthy are felt by ardent minds as robberies of the deserving."

"Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean."

"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order."

"Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from."

"What is a epigram? A dwarfish whole. Its body brevity, and wit its soul."

"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm."